Isn't Mimolette just a french copy of edam with an inordinate dose of anatto like linuxboy said? I guess you could try to find some cheese mites to make it authentic...talk about taking a "flaw" and turning it into an attribute. Not as extreme as casu marzu I guess.

Isn't Mimolette just a french copy of edam with an inordinate dose of anatto like linuxboy said? I guess you could try to find some cheese mites to make it authentic...talk about taking a "flaw" and turning it into an attribute. Not as extreme as casu marzu I guess.

Ran into a friend who'd been in Europe and the friend they were visiting whispered that he should cut the rind off a particular cheese he'd just bought at the farmer's market because it had been aged in Goat manure. He said the cheese was delicious but I'm not going to try this without more info....and maybe not even then!

The Food and Drug Administration is currently embroiled in a surprisingly heated culinary standoff — pitting French cheese-makers (and American cheese-lovers) against regulators, all because of one very small problem: cheese mites.

Cheese mites are microscopic little bugs that live on the surfaces of aged cheeses, munching the microscopic molds that grow there. For many aged cheeses, they're something of an industry nuisance, gently brushed off the cheeses. But for Mimolette, a bright orange French cheese, they're actually encouraged.

The mites munch on the rind for a few years and then are removed — usually with a blast of compressed air and a bit of hand-brushing — before Mimolette is sold. But there are always a few hiding behind. And now the FDA is cracking down.

According to the FDA's Patricia El-Hinnawy, there's no official limit, but the target is no more than six mites per square inch. For Mimolette, that's a near impossible standard.

Benoit de Vitton is the North American representative for Isigny, one of the largest producers of Mimolette. In March, de Vitton began receiving letters from each of the dozen importers he works with, saying that their Mimolette shipments had been detained.

De Vitton estimates that he now has about a ton of cheese sitting in FDA warehouses in New Jersey. "They say the product, because of the mites, it is not proper for human consumption," de Vitton sighs.

Ironically, de Vitton notes that Mimolette itself is rumored to have been created because of import issues in the 17th century. "The French were at war with Holland, and the king didn't want any more Dutch Gouda coming to France. So he asked to create kind of the same cheese."

But in the 21st century, do we need a cheese ban? Microbiologist Rachel Dutton runs a cheese lab at Harvard University, and we checked in with her about the dangers of mites. Dutton notes that there have been some reports of mite allergies, but they seem to be restricted to people who have come into contact with large numbers of mites.What The Camembert Rind Does For The Cheese InsideThe SaltWhat The Camembert Rind Does For The Cheese Inside

And Dutton says that while we may not like to think about bugs, they're a part of what makes cheese so delicious.

"Cheese is absolutely alive," Dutton laughs. And all of that life — the molds, bacteria, yeasts and mites — help make cheese what it is. Dutton says that the mites on Mimolette can contribute flavors of their own (they have a somewhat earthy smell), and by eating into the rind, they can also increase aeration — and the surface area in which the other microbes can do their work.

Dutton understands that this doesn't sound appealing, but implores people to realize the good work of these bugs. "There definitely are microbes that can spoil food and make either it bad for you to eat or just sort of gross. But any time you eat a piece of cheese or a bite of yogurt, have a piece of bread or a glass of wine — these are all examples of foods fermented by different types of microbes."

If I may, since we're talking about a cheese with mites and such. I'll tell of a Once upon a time:

When we, myself and a good friend Angelo, were about twenty years of age. We were at his grandmothers house. The only one there at the time was his cousins wife, who offered to feed us when we arrived. She served us large pates of Spaghetti covered with rich sauce. We had been drinking wine, singing and laughing. Well, after dusting the Spaghetti with Red pepper flakes we noticed there were, I guess they were weevils in the pepper. The cousins wife was like shocked saying: "I'll get you new plates of food." Na! we said, and began eating~to her horror. Stop it you guys, you can't eat that~ but we ate, drank wine and laughed it off~we did it to shock her really~and she was shocked. It was crazy, but it seemed the right thing to do at the time!